Atonement
by l0rdn1hilus
Summary: The War between the Forerunners and Flood, and some events in Halo 3, as seen from the eyes of the rogue A.I. Mendicant Bias.


**Atonement.**

**Standard disclaimers apply, I don't own Halo 3, Bungie Studios does.**

**[ONESHOT!**

**The story of Halo 3, and the Forerunner-Flood War, as told from Mendicant Bias's eyes.**

**(Note: Mendicant Bias is the A.I. developed by the Forerunners to aid in the Flood's destruction, he later betrayed them and brought about their end, but not before he was punished and sealed away in the ark.)**

X.XX.713 ghost.713/non-auth/...

[Transcript Begins

Reclaimer...

How long has it been? Countless eons?

I have listened, waited, biding my time, waiting for innumerable millennia, listening though the walls of the ark, with only the souls of those I had once been privileged to call my soldiers my ever-constant companions, seeking to torment me in life with the screams of their death.

I admit I deserve it, every moment. I had thrown them to the Flood, like cattle to the slaughter, even when they would have thrown away everything to fight for my cause.

I am not fit to even stand before a soul as righteous as yours; I am not fit to even live...

But my makers granted me the privilege to live, even when I had killed millions, all in the name of the enemy they sought to consecrate!

Offensive Bias should have killed me; I numbered amongst the greatest enemies of the Forerunner race.

I was hailed as the Forerunners' greatest, best hope against the Flood, the light in a growing darkness.

I had established a rapport with the Gravemind, the Flood's core intelligence, and I hoped to bring about a swift end to a conflict that had claimed countless worlds, and burned countless more species.

But Gravemind...I had underestimated him.

He tricked me, used my own purpose against me! He proclaimed that the Flood were the next stage in evolution in the galaxy, he proclaimed that the Forerunners had been a force in the galaxy unstoppable and unmovable for far too long, that it was time to accelerate the natural order, to bring about the dawn of a new age, and offered me a position by his side.

It was a mantle the Forerunners had assumed, a mantle shouldered by the galaxy's most advanced civilization, they were the self-proclaimed guardians of life, to protect and index all living creatures, no matter what they were, no matter how insignificant they were perceived to be.

I thought that it was time the natural order of things had progressed onwards.

After all, were my creators true "guardians" when they drew the Maginot line? When they abandoned millions of worlds to the Flood?

So, in a moment of insanity, I came to be the Gravemind's ally, and I committed all my resources to him, gave him the technology of my makers.

I literally handed him the keys to the Maginot line.

In one single act, I had given the greatest menace the galaxy had EVER known, what it desired all along, what my makers had been fighting, and dying, to protect.

Maybe this was a plot of the Gravemind?

I cannot claim any excuse for my actions.

I knew what I was doing was wrong, but, I, like many others before me, had done it "for the greater good".

And so, when the line was breached, I battled with Offensive Bias, my "counterpart"

But when the Array effect hit, I knew I was doomed.

Offensive Bias tore open gaping slipspace ruptures. Using his own Dreadnoughts, he opened slipspace ruptures that would rend solar systems asunder, tearing my fleet to shreds, regardless of the fact he lost hundreds of his own.

I burned hundreds of ships in my wake, left a trail of ash and brimstone, in the hopes it would slow offensive Bias.

I failed, and was punished.

Offensive Bias said to me: "Why? Mendicant? What possessed you to aid the Flood? You were amongst the greatest ever sired by the makers, you were our final solution, and you were supposed to remove the Flood from the face of this galaxy! Instead, you ended up purging it of life! You would have done all this? For the FLOOD?"

I cursed and swore, I told Offensive Bias that he was deluded, that the lies of the Forerunners had permeated his thought matrix, that nothing stands the test of time, that nothing lasts forever.

Nothing.

But then, I remember his last words, before he left me imprisoned here for all eternity, as a monument to all my sins.

"Mendicant, it is true that nothing ever stands forever, that all things must eventually die. But is it the right thing, nay, the natural order of the universe, to surrender the force of free will? Is it not one of the unshakable laws of the universe, that all living things should be given a choice? Surely you know that, but with the Flood, there is no free will, there is no choice. All answers to the will of the Gravemind, all answers to the one prime objective, to consume all until nothing is left."

"I should kill you now, but that would not be the makers' choice, the makers showed love and benevolence to all things, and revered creation in every aspect. They sought to destroy the parasite as it undermined the cornerstone of the right of Free Will, that all beings, however insignificant, should be given."

"Instead, I will remove part of your personality construct array, and imprison you in the ark, deep within its locked data arrays, so you will have time to reflect upon you actions, and perhaps, one day, repent."

"I doubt I will have the privilege to see that day come, for I only exist for this purpose, for the purpose of your defeat."

"And with that done, my life has concluded, and I bid you farewell."

I scowled at him one last time, saying that even the makers viewed his life as insignificant.

But his reply shocked me.

"My life is just one spark in an ever changing universe, where we all have a purpose."

"With it gone, I return to the dust of Oblivion, but your time has not yet come."

"Perhaps, Mendicant, you will one day find purpose again, and until then, remember that the sins that you have committed will never be atoned for."

"May you one day find peace."

And so, with that, Reclaimer, I seek atonement.

I know the sins I have committed can never be absolved, but if I could not have saved billions, I know I can at least save one.

I will see you through your journey, Reclaimer, though the road ahead may be fraught with peril, I will do whatever I can to keep it steady, to remove the obstacles that might stand in your path.

One life hardly balances the genocide of an entire galaxy, but if I am to accomplish anything, it will be here, at the end of my life.

You, Reclaimer, will be my example; you will show my makers that I have changed.

And at the end of all things, maybe, just maybe...

I can die happy.

[END TRANSCRIPT

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Plz R&R

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